Dead Zone
by SSAFunbar
Summary: It's Halloween and someone finds their life in danger. Who is it and will they make it out alive? Summary sucks but reads better. Rated T to be safe. Written for the CCOAC challange.


The whole team had been busy that evening; Morgan was visiting family, JJ and Hotch were trick-or-treating with their sons, Garcia and Prentiss had already planned on going to a Halloween party together and even though Rossi wasn't busy, he was crotchety and didn't want to do anything. So in the end, Reid had asked Anderson if he was interested in going to the new haunted house that had opened up last weekend.

Grateful to be asked to do something outside of work, he agreed and the two were going to meet at the bureau and head to the house from there.

It was around ten o'clock when they arrived at the Dead Zone Haunted Experience. The two agents had figured there would have been a huge line what with it being Halloween and all but to their surprise, there was no one waiting in line or anyone near the house addressed on the flier. Though they thought this a bit strange, they still went to look for the entrance.

"This doesn't seem right," Anderson said under his breath as they approached the sign that said 'enter here'. However, he shrugged off the bad feeling and continued with the eager Reid.

After taking a single step inside, the door slammed close behind the pair and all the dim lights that were on went out. Reid had a gleeful look on his face thinking the show was about to begin but for Anderson, it was a look of pure terror. Off in the distance, a single light glimmered like a small beacon of hope. Not wanting to look away from the light but feeling he needed to; he tried tugging on the doors that wouldn't budge.

Anderson was never good with the dark; he never liked it even as an adult and now it threatened to overtake him. As he turned, he found that the shine was gone and it was now utterly black inside the supposed haunted house. "Reid?" he whispered.

"I'm right here," his voice unnervingly calm and eerie and surprisingly close by.

"We need to find a way out of here."

"Why, this is obviously part of the experience." He tried to reason.

"I don't think it is."

He could almost hear the rolling of Reid's eyes as he responded, "Fine; there's got to be a way out through the back."

"Wait, hold on," Anderson said pulling out his phone to play around with it until it was emitting a beam of light. "Okay, let's go."

Reid led the way through the house and to where there should have been a door to the outside but found that there was only the one they had come in.

Frowning, Reid said, "We might as well have a look around if we can't get out."

Still not liking the idea of being anywhere near the house at all anymore, Anderson hesitated a moment before finally agreeing.

Slowly they found themselves creeping up the stairs and into the same darkness that was below.

"I still don't like the feeling of this," Anderson said expecting an answer back. When none came, he turned and saw that Reid was no longer behind him. "Reid," he called out taking a step backwards down the stairs. As he turned around, he found a sliver of light coming from the entrance. His heart leaped with hope.

"Reid," he tried again setting foot on level floor. Still he did not answer but there was a creaking a few feet to the left. Slowly, Anderson turned his head to see what caused the eerie noise however; he didn't turn in time to see what came plowing at him that sent him crashing into the stair case and onto the floor.

Looking above him, in shock stood a heavily breathing Reid. Through the light of the phone Anderson dropped while being attacked, Reid's face was slightly illuminated and from what Anderson could make out, Reid's eyes were just pupils; black holes that reached the deepest pit of Hell.

Time slowed down to a near stop as the two men stood and just stared into each other's eyes. Reid moved first. He reached his hands out towards Andersons throat; the slender man was fast though as he rolled out from his friend turned attacker. From where he rolled, Anderson attempted to get to his feet but found that Reid stood over him ready for a second attempt to strike.

Instead of dodging again, he thrashed his foot up into Reid's stomach making him fall to the ground. Finally, Anderson was able to get to his feet and took his chance to run for it. But Reid was faster.

He made it to the door first and blocked it off as the agent reached out for it. An evil smirk crossed his face as he shoved Anderson back from the door. He hit the ground hard. He held his hand up to his head; bringing it to his eyes, he found it covered in a dark liquid substance.

In his moment of distraction, Reid had closed the small gap between the two, hands still reaching. Something in Anderson said that he was going to die that night and it scared him. There were many times when he thought that he would die in his line of work but never had it crossed his mind that he would be murdered by his friend.

It was without him noticing his own actions that he reached for the gun that remained around his waist. Before he realized what he was doing, he held it in his left hand. Reid's hands made contact with the older man's throat. He couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger. The hands grew tighter and his vision started to blur as he attempted to gasp for breath and now it was getting dark again.

There was a loud bang and the weight of Reid's body came crashing down on Anderson. He let out a soft oof. He could feel warm splatters across his face and he let out an unstable breath. Using the strength he had left, he pushed Reid off him and stood up. In the still black room, Anderson could only make out the black mass on his temple from where the bullet hit him.

Anderson squatted down to check for a pulse but found none. Rolling him over so he was on his back, Anderson found himself looking into the wide eyes that he recognized as Reid's; unable to look into them for long, he made sure they were closed before standing and picking his phone off the ground.

He had just taken his third step when he could feel something snaking around his ankle. He gave a tremendous tug to free himself from Reid's grasp. He had been dead not seconds before and yet the demon inside him was still attempting to kill Anderson.

Managing to free himself, Anderson raised his glock17 so it was leveled with Reid's head. As he squeezed the trigger, he squeezed his eyes shut too. He shot five rounds and waited ten seconds before opening them again to find that once again Reid was still.

Not hesitating this time, he high-tailed it to the door. When he made it to the car, he finally turned to get one last look at the Dead Zone. Standing there, deep red blood oozing from the gaping hole in his head was Spencer Reid. Eyes black as Hell's pit again and a snarl on his lips. He didn't take after Anderson but instead watched as he drove off.

A day later Anderson had explained what happened and when to show the team the haunted house but as they pulled up to the address it was gone; never to be seen again.

"We fight our demons all our lives and sometimes we lose." ~ SSAFunbar

Happy Halloween everybody! Hope you enjoyed this…. Whoa Anderson….. Please, let me know what you thought, comments are truly appreciated. Also, I want to thank Brandy St Andrews who unknowingly helped me choose who died. And one last thing, I don't own Criminal Minds or anything else. Goodnight.

Okay, I lied, this is the last thing... after I decided what was going to happen,I wished that I could change Anderson and Reid to Morgan and Garcia because that would have been really unexpected. (I would have had Morgan kill Garcia; bwahhahahahaha) And now, Goodnight!


End file.
